Retirement trust approves small‑cap manager swap, rebalances fixed income

The St. Mary's County Retirement Benefit Trust Committee voted this October in the Chesapeake Building to replace its John Hancock small‑cap allocation and to adjust fixed‑income managers, moving $1.2 million from the John Hancock Small Cap Dynamic Growth Fund into the American Beacon small‑cap growth fund and shifting $1.5 million out of the Lord Abbott short‑duration sleeve into two core investment‑grade managers.

The swap and rebalancing were presented by Patrick Wing, presenter, who led the committee through a manager search that produced two finalists for the small‑cap growth sleeve: Emerald Growth Fund and American Beacon (sub‑advised by Stevens Investment Management). Wing summarized the choice by contrasting strategy and recent performance, and noted the committee’s existing investment was a John Hancock fund that had been closed and rolled into a different John Hancock product with a sub‑advisor the investment team has not fully vetted. "From a fiduciary perspective, I'm just gonna come out and say we would not recommend it because we don't know enough to recommend it to you," Wing said of the rolled‑into John Hancock fund.

Why it matters: the committee’s small‑cap sleeve represents a tactical part of the U.S. equity allocation and the…